


Red, O red, is the stain of gore!

by scandalous_in_belgravia



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1950s, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hydra (Marvel), James Buchanan Barnes - Freeform, OFC has issues, Protective Bucky Barnes, Russia, Smut in chapters 3 and 4, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, female HYDRA agent, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:24:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7887580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scandalous_in_belgravia/pseuds/scandalous_in_belgravia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Stalinist Russia life is about survival. When a mission goes awry, survival becomes improbable. But then a knight with a shining silver arm appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red, O red, is the stain of gore!

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing is inspired by Tom Rob Smith's brilliant book Child 44, so if I steal from his constructions of atmosphere I'm sorry, but it truly is a terrific book.  
> First time trying to focus more on plot than on smut (who knows how this will go ^^), so please leave comments, I'd love to read them.

The air was bone chilling cold, every breath was puffs of white fog escaping into the air as Viktoriya walked down the walkway towards the Lubyanka-Building, ice was glistening on the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky on the square that was dominated by the main building of the MGB. Viktoriya tugged her scarf tighter around her neck. It was early in the morning, yet the streets were crowded with gangs of people, trudging toward their assigned workplace. Stalin himself boasted to never work less than 12 hours and nothing more was expected from the people. Nevertheless the square itself was deserted, people tended to steer clear of the Lubyanka and the atmosphere of violence and fear it seemed to radiate. Once you were sucked inside, there were only two ways you would leave again: on your way to a Gulag or on a funeral bier. Viktoriya often wondered which way was the better.

She despised her job, but she was good at it and in Stalinist Russia you quickly learned that staying alive was the key element and in the end her job was all she had.

During the great famine in the Ukraine both her parents never saw spring again, leaving her with their rotting corpses alone in the middle of a deserted village, where only 9 people survived to see a new year. When the officials from the party came she was put into an orphanage, too weak to walk or talk. Left to their own devices, an unknown number of children was stuffed carelessly into windowless rooms, up to 7 sharing a bed, the amount of dirt and suffering and despair still made her hairs stand on her back. It was hell on earth and she swore to herself to never feel so helpless again. After the Great War she finally ran off, living on the streets, begging, stealing, selling her body … that was when they found her, unkempt and desperate.

HYDRA had grown steadily in the dark corners of Stalin’s power machinery, in its secret organisations where torture and death was ever present. Soon after the war they were already controlling vital parts of state organisations, but especially the state security. And they were always on the look-out for new recruits. Teenagers living on the streets were the perfect victims, ruthless in their will to survive, naturally suspicious and deeply devoted to anyone who got them away from the cold corners of the cities. She underwent cruel training, designed to extinguish any compassion or warm feelings that might have been left, turning her into a machine to receive orders. On the outside she was part of a unit assigned to a MGB investigator, fulfilling her duty diligently for her Fatherland, not outstanding in her performance, but perfectly average, plain, the only way to survive in Russia. For her true tasker, however, she was a secret weapon, right at the heart of one of the most influential and dangerous organisations of the Soviet Union. To keep a secret in Russia at this time was almost impossible, to keep one at the heart of the MGB suicidal and Viktoriya knew it. And she hated it, every aspect of it. The lies, the deceits, the violence, the deaths. When they escorted her from the street and into their facilities, she thought her life had finally changed, finally there was a way out of poverty and disgust. She studied hard, fought even harder and became one of their best. With 20 she had her first missions, always executed with overwhelming precision. She didn’t care about agendas or politics, all that counted were her orders … and her survival. Then she was planted in the MGB and according to her position she was granted new exquisite clothes, an apartment entirely for herself and the right to shop at the speztorgi while others had to cue for 6 hours for a piece of bread.

Friends were another luxury she thought she would never be able to afford, but when she met Mikhail at work even that was suddenly a possibility. But then the raids and the arrests started once again, everyone denounced everyone just to stay alive or reduce the torture. No one was safe, not even the MGB and not even Mikhail. He was innocent, she knew, but to prove her own loyalty, she was forced to be the one to question him. She watched him scream and beg and bleed. She survived, as she always had. He didn’t. The disgust against herself and the organisations she worked for became almost unbearable.

As she reached her office that day, a lush box on her desk caught her eye: A bright red satin ribbon was wrapped around it, a sight almost ridiculous in the small grey room that was dominated by the portrait of Stalin on the wall above the worn off furniture. Inside the box was a simple card, with two typed words: Tonight, 8pm.

HYDRA called … and she was ready to comply. Survival was key.


End file.
